Well, the reasons why have nothing to do with the content of this post so I will keep it brief. Both work and home had a lot going on that demanded my attention. Nothing horrible, just very busy. Suffice it to say that things are calming down and I plan to return to posting a couple times a week as I had been. Now on to today’s post.

I’m a Navy brat. Which is to say that I moved when I was younger.

Lots.

Perhaps every two years or so I would pack my stuff and relocate to a new town. I actually got pretty good at it, to the point that I could pack my entire room (minus the furniture, dad handled that) in just a few hours.

Hell, I could properly pack for moving in less time than my son takes to clean his room.

I learned a few lessons when I was on the move like that. I have been the new kid in the school enough times to start getting a pretty good grip on figuring out how to find my place with a new group of people. This helped me out a lot later on. Both during my own time in the service (Navy ftw) and as I moved to new towns, new jobs, and even online as I have switched servers and guilds from time to time.

That is why the behavior of someone who just recently joined the guild really irritated me yesterday. Not only was (s)he being inconsiderate to others but really going about the whole “I’m new here, lets make a decent impression” thing poorly.

Enough of my babbling, I’ll just tell the story already.

I had just logged in last evening and had about an hour and a half to actually try and do something. I was hoping to grab a VOA run on my hunter Drupadi, mostly hoping for a second piece of tier 7 to drop to give me the 5% pet damage set bonus. I figured it might help on Thaddius, since we seem to be having a week or two of enrage wipes at 3-5%. Anything I can do to squeeze out a few more dps I am down with.

Low and behold someone hits guild chat with the idea of putting together an OS 10 run. It’s an unfamiliar name, but guilded. An alt perhaps? Well, it’s a short raid and I had a while so I signed up. Within a few minutes we had put together eight or nine guildies. Within a few more minutes we had filled the last slot or two with folks from other guilds and headed off.

Not everyone is in full epics. Actually, although I did not inspect anyone other than the other hunter, I doubt anyone was in full epics. Trust me I understand that to a degree gear matters, but it’s not everything. If you try to run an instance in unenchanted “of the whale” greens you got for cheap in the auction house you will likely have problems, even if you are good. Then again I have seen folks in nearly full epics in pugs not out Dps my pet.

* side note* there should be an achievement called “Whale of a good time” for completing a raid where all the players are completely outfitted with “of the whale ” gear.

Anyhoo we went in and gathered up for buffs. About half of us had not been there before so we were looking around a bit, getting our bearings in a way. The raid leader (and same person who built the group) marked up the first pull. Sounds pretty common right? That little time before the action starts is kind of like the calm before the storm.

Suddenly here comes the first pull.

I jump up from where my not at full health or mana self was sitting eating buff food to pick up Dps on the skull. This is all assuming it’s the first kill target, nothing was ever said. As always when things don’t go as planned everyone reacts and tries to improvise, to salvage the situation. Well within a few seconds the off tank went down, followed shortly thereafter by both of the healers. Not really sure what the mobs kill order for us was after that, but it did not really matter.

It was a wipe.

A Bad pull.

A Miscommunication (or in the raid leaders case, no communication)

It happens.

Rez, dust yourself off, and go back to it. You don’t learn from successes, you learn from failures. Well. we know not to do that again.

Thats where this took a turn for the surreal. The main tank, the person who had build the group, was a newcomer to our little community. I don’t know where he came from, or if in fact he will be with us long, but his first impression to me will always and forever be about his reaction to this one pull.

You see after we all ran back he proceeded to tell the rest of the group that we simply could not cut it . Our gear sucked and he was not going to “waste his time” with folks who did not meet whatever standards he decided to set. So after taking the time to build a group from within the guild he had only recently joined he dropped raid and went along about his business.

Honestly, I was floored.

Not only did he make himself look like an asshat, he made himself look like and asshat in front of the guild he supposedly wants to raid with.

Well, I have a news flash. If I am building anything more difficult than a group quest (s)he is the last tank on my list. If I am setting up a heroic or a 10 man of some sort, I will pug a tank (or anyone else) before I will take one that bails after the first wipe. Particularly when one of the causes of the wipe was pulling before the group was ready. If I pug a tank I might get an asshat, if I drop an invite towards this person I know I am getting one.

The ironic part is that we grabbed another guildie who came and tanked for us and managed to clear the place without another wipe.

Not one.

I would have paid to see the look on his face when the achievement spam went rolling past. I think 5 or 6 of us were completing it for the first time. His only comment in chat was “Amazing”. Hopefully he learned a bit from what he saw. I doubt it, but I can hope.

Icing on the cake (at least for me) came when we checked to loot. There sat the token for my tier 7 gloves, and the only other person who could use it already had them.

Hey, nice site and nice post. Your comment on GG brought me here and I added you to my list of reads.

Your story reminded me of my guild’s raid the other night. We started in OS and we were sitting around waiting for the first pull, buffing up, etc. when some STOOPID hunter (:me:) was testing a new target-the-target-of-your-focus’s-mother’s-target macro that somehow fired an unplanned shot at the first group of trash.

A second or two of confusion and then the group responded and we took them down as if it was a coordinated pull. You’re story reminds me to appreciate being in an AWESOME guild with skilled, modest and generous players.

And hardly anyone gave me crap. Oh wait, they gave me loads of crap. But that’s cool, too.